Summary: Due to its capability of dispensing very small volumes of different liquids in a controlled manner, ink‐jet printing is well suited for combinatorial experiments. The multi‐nozzle ink‐jet delivery system is especially advantageous for parallel chemical synthesis of different materials. We have used ink‐jet printing of an oxidizing agent to pattern a pre‐coated conducting polymer, poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxy)‐thiophene‐poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT‐PSS), yielding electrodes with predefined shapes and a controlled degree of sheet resistivity for use in gray‐scale organic light‐emitting devices (OLEDs). The electrical and optical properties of the PEDOT‐PSS layer are modified via chemical interaction using the oxidizing agent. These experiments were performed using a desktop ink‐jet printer in conjunction with common graphic software which employed color functions such as CMY (cyan, magenta and yellow), HSL (hue, saturation and luminosity) and RGB (red, green and blue).
Photographs of gray‐scale OLEDs patterned on PEDOT‐PSS surfaces by an ink‐jet printer on plastic substrates.
